The Future Loses

The Right clearly is defending the rich, or business, or corporate America, or all of the above, with its budget proposals that include ludicrous tax cuts and even-more-ludicrous cuts to public welfare systems. The Left, on the other hand, is defending the poor and the middle class by proposing tax hikes to the rich. Both sides are defending the Defense budget, indomitable and untouchable. And yet where are the defenders of the environment? Where are the defenders of science research?
Between Obama's budget, Simpson-Bowles, and The Ryan Plan all include slash, slash, SLASH! across R&D funding agencies and none seem particularly rosy on the environment. Obama, when the occasion calls for it, offers election-season pandering about oil-alternatives, but doesn't really say anything dangerously aggressive or committal. And the GOP basically doesn't care about the environment.
But everyone is super interested in saving America. They worry about America's deficit crisis, her education bubble, her housing crisis, her health care crisis...on and on and around and around we go, discussing every person's plan to make the future better for America.

It's like everyone is discussing what changes to the interior of an airplane will most benefit passenger comfort on future flights, but ignoring the fact that there is an entire wing missing from the plane.

Look, you can plan for a better future all you want, and I personally laud your efforts. But if you cannot include serious investment in domestic research spending, and serious investment in environmental protection...then America's future people won't really need to worry about the deficit in 2050, they'll need to worry about other things.


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